


3/4 Cup of Honey 1/2 Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon

by mystery_deer



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but only in the past as a child, fics where nothing happens are my speciality, that's the niche I've apparently cornered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_deer/pseuds/mystery_deer
Summary: Raymond wakes up after babysitting his nephew and cooks for his husband.
Relationships: Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	3/4 Cup of Honey 1/2 Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon

Raymond woke up startled by the late evening glow of his living room, confused why he wasn’t in bed. He didn’t remember falling asleep at all yet there he was, squinting up at the chandelier. He really needed to ask the housekeeper to dust it. 

There was a stirring beside him and he realized that Kevin was also on the couch, asleep and showing no signs of waking up. He was crammed almost into the cushions and the two of them sharing the couch was a messy tangle of limbs. Kevin was lying almost on top of him, leg and arm splayed over Raymond’s chest and hip while Raymond’s neck was sore from how it was bent resting against his husband’s cheek. Kevin’s head was in the process of turning from the sunlight and Raymond felt fond as the change in position triggered something and the other man began to snore lightly.

He remembered then. They’d been up all night watching Marcus and Debbie had only just picked him up that morning, laughing that they looked like hot messes. _“God help you if you ever have kids!”_ She’d chirped, bouncing her son in her arms. Kevin, leaning heavily against the door frame with his eyes closed to the sun, had said that after the night they’d had it wouldn’t be an issue.  
_“You hear that Marky Mark? We should hire you out to some of them birth control clinics, you’d make a killing!”_

_“Killing is an apt descriptor.”_ Kevin had said as Raymond watched Marcus following along with who was speaking, babbling softly. Children were fascinating, he remembered being a child well. He held out his hand to his nephew and felt a thrill when the boy grabbed at it and brought his finger to his tiny mouth to gum at the skin. He was teething.

They must have fallen asleep after that. The television was still on but too low to hear anything but comforting noise. A talk show he’d only seen in passing was playing, one of the ones that people cried on all the time. The kind his grandmother would have liked to watch if she were still alive. He could picture her in her flowery living room, tutting at the jumpy colored television Raymond’s mother had finally convinced her to let her buy. Her favorite show was always about cheating no good men and the women who suffered through them. _“Ray, you be sure not to turn out like that.”_ She’d warned and he’d nodded, splitting his attention between his grandmother’s parrot and the screen. 

The parrot was old like her and Raymond was enamored with it, feeding it crackers and letting it out of its cage whenever the adults were distracted to watch it stretch its wings and open its mouth to speak. His mother told him that the bird had been alive even when she was a child and at the time he couldn’t fathom an animal being so old. He listened attentively when it spoke, crying out _“Daggum!”_ and _“For shame!”_ and _“Oh you!”_ going from Raymond’s grandfather’s voice to his grandmother’s, switching genders with every phrase.

He was never tempted to be like the smooth-talking men on television because their prime goal in life seemed to be having women to complain about loving. 

_“Goddammit Sue!”_ The leading man cried out in anguish, turning a woman roughly back towards him, holding her against his chest and snarling. _“You drive me crazy!”_ He would cringe at it now but as a child he couldn’t help but be captivated by the scene and when visiting he’d always make a beeline to the living room to sit at his grandmother’s feet and watch her ‘stories’ with her while his sister went off to play with the neighborhood kids.

_“I can’t believe she’s going back to that boy.”_ Came her voice from above, amused at her own annoyance. Raymond shook his head appropriately but he could understand. He sometimes laid in bed with his eyes closed pretending he was dreaming so he wouldn’t have to admit it was a fantasy, a fantasy about a rakish no-good man at his door, down on his luck and asking for a second chance. A fantasy about being grabbed, being looked at, being the object of such intense desire it drove someone mad. A lovecraftian love, too vast and complex to be understood. He certainly didn’t. He certainly tried not to.

_“For shame!”_ The parrot cried, ruffling its feathers and reminding Raymond to close his mouth. _“For shame!”_

Raymond was careful not to wake Kevin when he got up and stretched, his husband immediately took advantage of the extra space and unfurled his limbs further. Raymond stared at him for a moment, blinking away sleep. He looked beautiful, his hair revealed how red it was when drenched in the orange-yellow sun. Raymond’s stomach growled. 

“Food.” He said aloud to no one, yawning as he made his way to the kitchen. “Right.”

It wasn’t that Raymond didn’t know how to cook, he simply preferred not to. Those who’d eaten his food in the past preferred he didn’t as well. Kevin was oddly pleased whenever he found Raymond in the kitchen, asking him what he was making and eagerly helping him gather ingredients. Kevin had often helped his mother cook when he was young and when he was even younger he’d just watched her, sitting on the counter and tasting whatever she offered to him. Whenever he talked about it his face grew pinched even though he smiled, like he was talking about someone who was dead and not someone who lived a few hours upstate. 

Raymond didn’t taste food until it was done and he was eating it. If he followed the recipe it would taste fine. Kevin stopped and reviewed after every step.  
_“Is that enough garlic?”  
“It’s how much garlic the recipe called for.”  
“...ah, a bit more perhaps.”_

When Kevin wasn’t there he missed him. It was irrational, he knew. His husband was in the other room asleep but he missed him. As he gathered ingredients as quietly as possible he fought the urge to drop something and hear Kevin’s slippers being dragged down the hall and see his head peek in to witness what the fuss was about, eyelids heavy and hair sticking to his warm cheek.

He toyed with the idea of making hard-boiled eggs but decided to make pancakes instead. Kevin liked them and though Raymond found them a bit much on a normal day he was feeling a bit off-kilter due to the change in his sleeping schedule. He did not picture Kevin’s hum of surprise or how he might wrap his arms around Raymond’s waist from behind, mumbling about what a _pleasant surprise_ pancakes would be. He definitely didn’t, that would be silly.

Kevin made his pancakes with honey and ate them with berries, citing it was healthier and less mess. He disliked syrup’s tendency to stick to its container and when they used it he kept a damp napkin on hand to wipe it clean. Syrup made Raymond think of family breakfast, of Debbie drowning her waffles in it.  
_“It’s not good unless it’s soggy!”_ She’d say indignantly when Raymond pointed out how disgusting it was. He wondered if Marcus would grow up to be the same way, children were truly mysterious. He and his sister were so different despite being raised under the same circumstances.

The sausage sizzled in the pan. Raymond could make pancakes without much effort after memorizing the recipe. He thought about adding something to the batter but decided against it, he didn’t want to make another batch if he ruined his current one through needless meddling. 

He turned the small mostly decorative radio nestled in the corner on, tuning it to the news. Everything was still awful but it was a mundane sort of awful, the kind everyone learns to tune out. The way the weather woman announced the various projected temperatures made him think of horses and the smell of damp money on his hands so he changed it to music.

When he was younger his mother would make them breakfast every day and force them to wake up early to eat it before school. He remembered dragging himself to the table in total darkness, the stained glass kitchen light flickering above. Debbie always loosened the bulb so it wasn’t as bright. He remembered watching his mother’s back in the kitchen. His other grandmother, the one who he only saw on holidays, always called cooking ‘fixing’. She’d frown and say _“Let me fix you something, baby.”_ She was the only person who’d ever called him ‘baby’ in his life and it melted over him like warm water. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw her. He remembered the last card she sent him. It was for his seventeenth birthday, there was a twenty-dollar bill taped inside but no writing except his name on the ‘to’ line and hers on the ‘from’.

Kevin called him ‘Darling’ the most. ‘Darling’ could be said in any tone. An exasperated sigh, a fond smirk, a breathy moan, mumbled under his breath after a kiss or when he was going to suggest going to bed. Last night Kevin had called _“Darling, can you help me with the baby?”_ and for a moment Raymond pictured what their lives might look like if they had one of their own. It wasn’t awful but it felt so separate from them. The Father him didn’t exist outside of his home, the Father him was always on the Friday of a weekend. He didn’t think he had the energy to care for a child full time. He didn’t think Kevin had the inclination. The thought of Kevin being a father made him chuckle. 

As Raymond plated the sausages and began pouring the batter into a pan he heard the shuffle of slippers in the hall and his heart picked up a fraction. Not enough to pound but enough to take note of it. It felt silly and right, to still love him so much. The missing would be over at least. 

“What time is it?” Kevin asked, voice low with sleep as he rubbed at his eyes. He paused. “Good m- well...good evening.” Raymond nodded to him and Kevin blinked, leaning against the doorframe and closing his eyes. He was a reliant creature when he was tired, leaning and holding on. He stayed like that as Raymond flipped the pancakes and began plating them. 

“That smells wonderful.” Kevin remarked. He had an aversion to asking direct questions when he wasn’t sure about the answer. Raymond could read between the lines, _May I have some?_

“I made it for you.” Raymond answered him. Kevin smiled for a fraction of a second, tapping his temple with the tips of his fingers in a parody of a cartoonish slap to the forehead. 

“Of course, where is my head?”  
“It’s understandable, you just woke up after all.” Kevin’s smile flickered again. He loved Kevin’s smile. He loved the way it fluttered like a flame or the wings of a butterfly. He loved to make it appear again and again and again. Kevin kissed his temple and ducked down to pour cold water from the fridge into a cup before picking out a jug of water from the cabinet and pouring it into another cup for Raymond. 

Irrationally, Raymond loved him so much for the mundane gesture that it hurt. There was something so intimate about it, about knowing someone so well that accommodating them is second nature. 

When they’d first started dating and were talking about childhood infatuations Kevin had said his were cowboys in the old westerns his dad loved. Raymond admitted his feelings for no-good rascal men on soap operas and Kevin had laughed good-naturedly. _“You got me instead.”_ Raymond had thought, _I wouldn’t want anyone else._ He’d thought; _You’re perfect._ But he hadn’t said either of those things, it was all still too new. If the conversation came up again he’d say them. 

“Would you like me to set the table?” Kevin asked, taking both plates and carrying them out of the kitchen while Raymond washed his hands. 

“Mm...why not eat in the breakfast nook? Time is out of joint, after all.” Kevin smiled at the literature reference. How could anyone think him cold? One of their mutual friends had teased him once when he’d defended Kevin on that point, _“No, he’s definitely hard to please. It’s just that you please him effortlessly.”_ It had stuck with him. Pleased him effortlessly. His mere existence was pleasing. It felt silly, it felt right. 

“Are you coming?” Kevin called, sticking his head back into the kitchen. He looked handsome. His button-up shirt was wrinkled, it needed ironing. There was an imprint on his cheek from where it was pressed up against the couch. Raymond looked at his bare hand and decided that one day he’d buy him a ring like how Kevin had bought him a car all those years ago. He didn’t care what it meant to anyone but them and he knew Kevin would appreciate it, would mindlessly twist it and take it off when he washed dishes or went to bed so as not to lose it in the sheets. He could picture it so clearly on his husband’s finger that it was almost a shock that it wasn’t there already. 

“Are you alright?” Raymond blinked and nodded, turning off the radio.  
“Yes, thank you.” He walked out of the kitchen feeling satisfied, so full on love and pride he wondered how he’d even be able to eat. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can tell it's a Holt POV because the title seems like a spam bot wrote it. "I'm a human, I'm a human male!"


End file.
